


Heat

by magebird



Category: The Authority
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magebird/pseuds/magebird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping next to Apollo is like sleeping next to flame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat

Midnighter hated sharing a bed with Apollo. It was nothing at all to do with the man himself, of course—Midnighter loved him, and he wanted to spend every minute of the rest of his life with him, that was a given—it was just that it got old to wake up night after night in a feverish sweat because the man next to you in the bed felt like a living furnace.

On colder nights, it had been nothing but pleasant, and it was a comfort to curl up again something hot and solid when there was snow on the streets and the heat had been shut off for months after one too many skipped bills. Midnighter had been able to keep warm pressed close against Apollo’s chest, every night tangled as close as he could get, skin to skin. But, on the Carrier, of course, the temperature was always even and comfortable and though he could bear it—or even enjoy it—for a hug or a kiss or a fuck, spending the night under the covers got unbearable before long. Even after he’d kicked off the blankets, he lay sweating, staring up at the high ceiling and wishing for a draft.

Apollo hadn’t seemed to notice. He slept like a corpse, and Midnighter had always thought it was because the sun went down, but living beyond the influence of earth-bound days, he realized it was just how Apollo was. He didn't seem to notice Midnighter's discomfort, and tolerated his sleep-deprived irritability with the same patience and gentle concern with which he greeted every one of his flaws. Midnighter would have said something, but he didn’t know how to put it so it wouldn’t sting. What could he say? “I can’t sleep next to you, you’re too hot?” That would just open the door to bad jokes, and if Apollo saw that he was serious there was no way he’d take it well.

The walls of their room didn’t have any sort of visible climate controls—Midnighter had looked more than once—and he figured that the entire ship had to have some sort of universal system that kept everything at a perfect temperature. Well, perfect for the rest of them. Touching Apollo was like lying in direct sunlight for hours, and Apollo liked to sleep with one arm wrapped close around Midnighter’s waist, face pressed into the curve of his shoulder. Even forgoing blankets completely didn’t cut the heat enough to make it tolerable.

It took approximately .78 seconds to figure out the only viable solution to the problem, and about a week and a half to work up the courage to just go and ask. Angie was in the same place she could almost always be found, tethered in to the Carrier’s systems, eyes following invisible streams of data as they flowed past her, through her. She forgot to breathe when she was like that, her body going still and solid. Without the reflexive human gesture, she lost the last of what made her look really organic—though there was the indescribably living quality of her skin and the steady hum of electronics that seemed to prevent her from being nothing but a statue.

Midnighter stood watching her from the door for several minutes before he stepped inside, and instantly something alerted Angie to his presence, because she turned to look at him, breathing in sharply (half surprise, half out of the stutter as her body remembered the rhythm it had stilled who knew how many hours ago,) and tilting her head slightly to one side.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, and Midnighter couldn’t help the quirk at the corner of his mouth. That was the life, wasn’t it? Every arrival brought bad news, every message heralded another disaster.

“Nothing urgent,” Midnighter assured her, shoving his hands down in the pockets of his jeans and pacing towards her. He had to step over a knee-high bundle of cables, and paused at the base of the dais she was sitting on, looking up at her. “I needed to ask you a favor.”

Angie’s brows knitted, and she reached up, running a hand through her hair—no, Midnighter realized, through the mass of cables and wires plugged into her skull. Several thick ones came loose in her hand, and she dropped them, getting to her feet. Her skin shifted disconcertingly, shedding a dozen other connections as she moved and reforming to cover the gaps as she stepped down, moving with quick, confident steps towards him and through the maze of machinery that surrounded her. 

As she reached the edge of the dais, her own body shot out to form steps so she could descend, coming to a halt in front of him. For a second she looked up at him, her own height several inches less than his own, then rose effortlessly so she was on a level with his eyes, liquid metal pooling beneath her feet before hardening to hold her up.

“That’s kind of weird, you do realize that, right?” Midnighter raised an eyebrow, taking half a step back and crossing his arms. The corners of Angie’s eyes crinkled in a smile.

“What’s the point of having the ability to rebuild my body if I don’t get a few perks?” Her smile widened into a proper grin, her mouth incongruously red behind the silver of her lips, and she slid her hands down her waist to her hips, and she sighed dramatically, “Not that _you_ notice the perkier ones. What’s up?”

“I need you to turn on the air conditioner in me and Apollo’s room,” Midnighter said, shifting his weight to his other foot. “It’s too warm in there.”

Angie frowned slightly, her eyes slipping out of focus for a second before settling on him again, “It’s 22 degrees, just like the rest of the—“

“No, yeah, I know that. It’s just, Apollo, he’s really hot.” He paused, just long enough to see Angie’s eyebrows raise and for her to open her mouth to start teasing. “No—Angie, I mean literally. Physically, too hot. I can’t sleep at night.”

“Oh,” Angie said, looking a little surprised, “Oh, I mean—Can’t he just turn that down? The heat-of-the-sun thing.”

“When he’s awake he can keep it reigned in, yeah, but not when he’s sleeping and it takes conscious effort so if he’s relaxing or… otherwise distracted…” Midnighter trailed off and shrugged. “Is there anything you can do?”

“Um, I don’t know, hang on. Let me check.” Angie turned away slightly, looking back towards the jumble of cables and wires that served as her portal into the Carrier. Midnighter glanced past her, and noticed for the first time how much like the roots of a tree they looked, hanging down through the ceiling in organic clumps, some of them pulsing with steady, throbbing lights. A heartbeat of sorts. Angie turned back, frowning slightly. “I’m not really sure if she got all that—she’s promised to keep it cooler, but I don’t know by how much or if she knows it’s just your room.” Her frown deepened, but her tone was teasing, “If I wake up covered in frost, I’m going to kill you.”

Midnighter smirked, relaxing slightly. “Thanks, Angie. You’re my hero.”

“Anytime,” Angie turned back towards her dais, raising a hand to wave over her shoulder.

“Oh,” Midnighter paused, halfway back to the door, and twisted to look at her again, “Don’t tell Apollo I asked, alright?”

“Okay,” Angie said, hesitating, “Why? Won’t he notice that your room is a refrigerator now?”

“No, he won’t feel a thing,” Midnighter said, walking backwards, his shoes loud on the grating beneath them, “And he’ll just feel bad if he knows I had to ask. It’s not like he can help it, you know?”

Angie sighed, letting her nanites carry her back up into place and reaching out to grab her cables again, letting them fuse into her skin once more, “Sure, sure. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks,” Midnighter said, and turned on his heel and strode back down the hall.

That night, Midnighter was practically shivering by the time he’d changed out of his clothes and crawled under the covers. Apollo took his damn time in the bathroom—probably polishing his halo or putting in curlers or something, Midnighter thought, rather uncharitably—and by the time he finally slid in next to him, Midnighter’s toes were going numb.

“Hey—“ Apollo said, a little startled as Midnighter slid towards him, reaching out to wrap both arms around him, pressing his cold feet up against Apollo’s leg. He was brilliantly warm, like the slow heat from an electric blanket. “Are you okay?” His hand slid along Midnighter’s arm to his shoulder, sunshine against his skin, and he burrowed in closer, breathing in the fading scent of Apollo’s cologne near his neck.

“M’fine,” Midnighter mumbled, his lips pressed against Apollo’s collarbone in a kiss, hungry for the heat of him. “I just love you. I’m allowed to want to cuddle once in awhile, aren’t I?”

“I’m not complaining.” He could hear the smile in Apollo’s voice, and felt him press a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you, too.”

For the first time in months, he slept through the night.


End file.
